Kamala Harris is running for President of the United States and attended the opening of her campaign office in Oakland, CA on Sunday 9/29/2019. The office is located in Oakland's District 2 at 3909 Grand Avenue, Oakland, CA 94610.
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| Photo credit: East Bay Times |
The opening was attended by high-profile elected in Oakland including Mayor Libby Schaaf, District 3 City Councilwoman Lynette Gibson-McElheney, and Rep. Barbara Lee who is Harris's California fundraising co-chair.
As some may recall, Harris announced her run from President from the steps of Oakland City Hall in January of this year.
However, Harris' campaign has faced several stumbles, hurdles, and backtracks when it comes to resonating with Oaklanders. Many Oakland natives decry Harris claiming Oakland,CA as her hometown and campaign base because Harris was technically born in Oakland but spent most of her childhood abroad in Canada. When Harris returned to California, it was as a prosecutor. She has built her career and electoral profile across the water from Oakland in San Francisco where she worked at the District Attorneys office and held the Attorney General seat.
Despite support from Black elected officials, Harris also has a long way to go to convince Black voters. Harris's campaign launch and office opening were devoid of Black Oakland residents, with many people coming in on public transit for outer areas including SF, Berkeley, and Contra Costa county.
What does it mean for a Black woman to be running for the highest elected office to have a campaign team in Oakland, CA? How will the campaign engage Black voters in the Bay Area who are suffering the most in the housing and economic crisis? What does it mean for Harris to have launched several initiatives including APIAs For ThePeople, Latinos For The People, South Asians For The People, Divine 9 For The People, and Veterans For The People, but none focused on the Black American polity? Though is an HBCU alum and Divine 9 member, her platform on funding for HBCUs has been unclear and couched as part of a plan to train K-12 teachers.
Harris has a poor (or non-existent) record of supporting Black-centered policies and initiatives to address the acute needs of Black people in America. Harris's track record as a prosecutor has seen almost no support by Black community members. Yet when asked on the national stage during debates, Harris doubles down on her prosecutor career acknowledging no faults or things she would have changed, not even those who have suffered harm on her watch (e.g. wrongful conviction, wrongful incarceration, exculpatory evidence withheld during trial, racial profiling, sex trafficking by law enforcement). Harris now touts a criminal justice reform platform which begs the question: why not advance and adopt the platform when she was California's Attorney General, the top law enforcement official? Harris recently gave a last hour endorsement to conservative democrat Suzy Loftus in the 2019 San Francisco District Attorney election over the people's favorite and underdog public defender Chesa Boudin. Loftus represents business as usual in San Francisco's criminal system while Boudin ran to the left of all three opponents and has contended with backdoor deals between Loftus and Mayor London Breed as well as massive opposition funding from the SF Police Officers' Association.
Harris now claims that Oakland is an example to our country of hope and diversity but what tangible steps has she taken as Attorney General or now state Senator to address Oakland's needs? to address the rapidly increasing homelessness which is estimated to be 80% Black residents? to address the City's crumbling infrastructure? to address rampant racialized displacement and disinvestment?
If Oakland is the promise, we must treat is as such. Harris endorsed establishment candidates in the 2018 election cycle. Harris endorsed and helped to re-elect Mayor Libby Schaaf who's wanting leadership will continue to drive Oakland further into chaos, blight, and racial divide. Notably, Schaaf's main 2018 opponents for the Mayor's seat were Cat Brooks and Pamela Price, Esq.; two Black women candidates running on progressive platforms to the left of Libby's including criminal reforms.
With Kamala shifting staffing and closing her campaign offices in other parts of the country, I am unsure of the future of her Oakland, CA office. With her record of representing the government establishment and maintaining the status quos, I am unsure of her commitment as the candidate "For the People."
--Victory for Oakland
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